If You Fall I Will Catch You
by GraceEliz
Summary: Bruce is laid up after an explosion, Cass is recovering, the kids are so stressed and upset it's unbelievable.


"They took my baby from me," chokes out the young mother coiled on the cold hard cobblestones of tonight's crime scene. Her tear-streaked face is crinkled deep by grief and confusion – and, Dick sees, the deep agony of child-loss. Heartbroken keening floats hauntingly down the alley as she raises her eyes to swirling smog Black Bat is shrouded in tonight. Dick knows if it was Bruce on duty tonight he'd be comforting the woman, silent solidarity, but Dick has never lost a child. He thinks it must be like losing a youngest brother, a bit, but he knows he can't truly relate. She keens like her heart has been ripped from her chest and maybe it was when the thief ripped her baby away. Jason will find the baby, the man. And tonight of all nights they're thinking about Bruce and nobody is in a merciful mood and the crooks at large have noticed and hidden but before they go home there's this woman, mother, and Dick is helpless to do anything but crouch nearby as a signal of protection. He despises this feeling.

Cracked, he tips his neck to see Cass standing strong up above, the protector of women and the broken in this decaying city. She sways a little in the breeze as wheat or reeds in the breeze. Perhaps she too is thinking about the hollow look of grief on Bruce's face when he's under the toxin and the echoes of heartbreak in the way they're tucked carefully into bed and kissed goodnight, on how Bruce's keening rings in their memories for weeks and weeks after every episode and especially strong tonight.

The woman is wrapped in a tiny ball of sorrow, arms pressed deep into the emptiness of her stomach. When people lose the ones they love that is where they most often hurt. Your brain can't figure out why you're in pain so attributes it to the tangled mess of your intestines. This woman's grief, loss, cripples something in Dick's chest.

He wants his dad.

Cass flickers out of sight – Jason must have found the child-thief and reported in. Please, prays Dick desperately to whoever might be listening to prayers coming from the desolation of Gotham, please please just let this child have lived so this woman isn't alone and suffering. He holds no real hope of a positive answer.

"Do you have somewhere to go?" he asks gently as he shuffles a little nearer, carefully staying calm and sad and loose and not a threat. The woman shakes her head, shuddering in the leeching cold. Dick sighs silently. One of those nights when nothing is right and the fog drains the life out of them all and they need their dad. She could go to one of Jay's old safehouses, the one they've used before during floods and stuff to shelter the homeless. The soft thud of boots landing on cobbles reaches Dick slightly before the woman registers the sound and gasps in terror.

"S'alright,"grumbles Jason, "I took her to the nearest clinic for a check-up. The one by the old orphanage." The agony of certitude of loss drips out of the woman's shoulders as the tears roll off her jaw, and she stumbles forwards a little. Jay catches her, bracing her up with his arms under hers. She crumples into his chest, the red kevlar bat meaning hope and Gotham under her head. Her sobbing rings in Dick's ears to mingle into the decade's worth of grief in his memory. God but sometimes this doesn't feel worth it. He meets Jay's eyes through the hood. They'll get this woman to her baby and go home.

He wants his dad.

The master bedroom is the heart of the Manor. Usually it's kept quiet so that people can sleep at any time of the day in Bruce's bed. For a week it's been filled by the sharp beep of the heart monitor. Dick stands at the foot of Bruce's bed, jaw tight and not sure what he's feeling. This – it hurts his heart to see his dad hurt. He steps over the wooden rail to curl beside his dad's knee. So many nights have been spent like this, Bruce laid out on the bed wrapped in white blood-marked bandages with a Robin or two nestled beside him. The dark weave of Bruce's blanket blurs and he squishes his eyes shut against remembering what had happened.

They'd been messing around in the bright moonlight on one of the rare clear nights Gotham gets once a season or so. Tim was flat on the floor laughing hysterically as Dick and Jason piggybacked Steph and Damian respectively across the hurdles one of the flat-roofed boxy 80s era apartment buildings. A box of flats, Alfred and Bruce call them. The point of the exercise was to see who could leap the most hurdles without tripping or dropping whoever they were carrying. Tim had provided Damian and Steph with a bag of water balloons each (experimental, testing whether his new biodegradable material worked) and they'd been shrieking with glee as they hurled them at each other. Batman and Black Bat were checking over one of the warehouses from last week's drugs busts. Hopefully the gangs had goth the point and moved on but this was Gotham, so who knew. Dick shrieked as he toppled, Steph leaping clear as Jason yelled his triumph and Damian hurled his last remaining water bomb to nail Dick dead centre of the chest.

It had been such a fun night.

The explosion from the docks lit up the night hellish orange.

Nobody was laughing.

Dick can't remember how they got to the docks and the warehouse. The clearest image in his head is seeing Batman carrying the limp form of Black Bat out of the shadows. He thinks he remembers running to them, definitely remembers somebody taking Cass and Jay helping him haul Bruce into the batmobile. But that – it isn't something unusual, seeing Batman against a background of orange and yellow and red and grey and smoke. It's still triggering.

The next image is of Cass crying, sat on one of the medbay beds, ignoring the tubes and drips she was on, the tears mingling with the ash. She didn't move.

Then comes the image of Bruce and Damian laid out on Bruce's bed, and Damian reached out to hold Bruce's hand, and tugged it so he's being held against Bruce's side. It broke Dick's heart.

And next is Jason, Tim tucked into him, tugging Dick into his room and onto the bed. He can't remember falling asleep.

The day after Dick woke blearily before Tim, but Jason was gone. He detangled himself from his little brother, tucking the blanket back around his legs. He remembers Bruce saying that to help with Tim's sleepwalking he used to swaddle his legs. He sat on the edge of the bed staring at the wall. Bruce, he needed to check on him. He scrubbed the tears out his eyes, pulled on one of Bruce's hoodies lying on his floor, padded out of the room. Damian was still asleep with Bruce, where he was last night, tear-marked. And Bruce –

"Bruce," he sobs now, "Dad, please wake up. You- you- you've been asleep for a week, Dad, please wake up." He wants to bury himself in Bruce's chest like he does when he breaks down, wants Bruce's soft rumble against him. How does Bruce do it? See his kids lying on hospital beds wrapped in bandages? Every time Bruce gets hurt, hurt like this with concussive injuries and cuts and bruises and he has four broken ribs and Dick can see on his left arm where it's broken in three places and oh god he carried Cass like this he has to walk out of a burning warehouse with another child injured in an explosion and oh god god god he allowed her to be taken off him Dick knows after Jason how hard it is to take an injured child from Bruce after an incident and he thanks whoever listens that this time nobody died –

Dick wants his dad to wake up.

Damian rests his hands on his sketchpad. It's a comfort, he's found, to have a pencil and paper when he's upset. He can't draw. The only thing he can see is Cass on the white bed. She's so much smaller like this, limp, slender limbs laid out carefully to keep circulation at optimum. It took her a long time to fall asleep today and Damian had offered to stay down here with her. He'd argued against her going on patrol. Alfred had admitted that as long as she avoided unnecessary fighting she was healthy enough to manage the basics and that the fresh air high at the top of the skyscrapers would help her chest rid of the last of the smoke. The fear of the thought of letting Cass out was mollified by knowing the others would keep her safe, but leaving Father alone isn't ever an option for Damian. Since the others were all already suited up it made sense he would be the one to sit with Father. This last week – it had been awful. Cass had been less injured than Father, thankfully, but it had still been awful. She'd been handed off to Steph after Father carried her out of the burning remains of the warehouse, and Duke had held onto him and pulled him onto a bike and driven him home and he wasn't sure where exactly Duke had taken him but it had landed him beside his dad, so he was okay with it.

Cass, lovely Cass, how she'd cried coming off the painkillers the second day. Damian had still been in bed with Father when Duke carried her up. Duke. Where would they be without him, Damian wondered. He could hold it together so well when this sort of disaster landed on them. Less trauma maybe. He'd earned his place in this family alright, Damian wasn't so heartless to outright deny that. Duke had said he'd be coming down to sit with him as soon as he had tea and a sandwich. Tt. He was taking a long time.

Damian hoped he was okay.

His sister was starting to shuffle on the bed. "Shhhh, shhhh, you're safe. We're downstairs," she seemed to be wakening despite his whispered attempts at soothing her, "Cass, you can stay asleep." Damian sighed as she stirred further into alertness. Did anyone here ever truly sleep? (father has been asleep for a week, whispered his mind) "Cass?"

"Dad," she said.

"Upstairs. Hurt."

"…..Damian."

"Yes, I'm here. Do you need anything?" he asked anxiously. Hopefully not. He didn't want to leave her alone whilst she was sick. The weight of Cass' gaze felt like Father's did when he felt too much to express. That was good, about Cass. She didn't use words, he didn't have to say anything. Raising her arm she indicated he should climb onto the bed with her. Damian set his pad carefully aside. When she felt a little better, they could go see Father.

Duke locked the door into his room. He'd intended to return to Damian and Cass downstairs, truly, but he'd walked past Bruce's room and heard Dick sobbing. The mess of his emotions threatened to explode out of him, or else twist him into himself until nothing was left. He felt – like a pebble beach under scudding grey cloud. Bleak. Too much, like the beauty of the Highlands in summer, or the high rolling mountains of the drive from Newcastle to Ullapool. Too – just, too much. Bruce had almost died. Cass too. Damian had been shaking in his arms when he'd caught him as Bruce and Cass came into view. He'd waited, holding the shaking child tight and close, until both Cass and Bruce were on their way home for treatment. Only then had he brought Damian home. Damian had been almost unresponsive. He'd knelt in front of him, stroking the soft hair away from the kid's small face. Pale beneath his natural tan. Sickly. There hadn't been a protest as Duke stripped them both and got them showered, not even after as he handed Damian his favoured leggings and one of Bruce's hoodies.

Duke didn't want to know just how many hoodies Bruce possessed for them to be just everywhere the way they were.

By the time both he and Damian were dressed and their uniforms set up to be cleaned later today or possibly tomorrow Alfred and Leslie and Clark (when had he arrived?) had finished stitching Bruce and Cass up. Duke knew that Bruce was this badly injured because he'd covered Cass from the worst of it all with his own body.

Duke wonders how many of the other Batkids know that.

Dick's sobbing can be heard even from his room, two down from Bruce's. There are eight rooms in this corridor. Only three were slept in the night of the explosion. Damian with Bruce; Dick, Jason and Tim in Dick's room; Duke and Steph had taken laps crashing in here. Duke first, after dropping Damian into Bruce's, then Steph had woken him about four hours later so he could take over sitting with Cass.

She'd been tubed and bandaged like Bruce, but he'd been informed by the chart on the bed that she was being kept downstairs on account of it being a better medical environment. Apparently the only reason Bruce was upstairs was because he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Duke really, really wants him to wake up. They need him. Being in the house and on patrol without him is simply not the same. It bruises something in his stomach to think of Bruce on drips and oxygen and the beeping of the heart monitor filling the silence and-

He breaks.

Cass doesn't know the name for how she feels. It's sad-pain-love-fear for Dad, sympathy-sad-strength for Damian. Maybe her body isn't ready to leave the medbay yet but she desperately wants to see Dad and Duke and make sure everyone else is okay. Jason has been a bit emotionally distant since the explosion. He's scared for them. Dad isn't supposed to be laid up like this. That's what he calls it, laid up, same as Alfred does. She wants to hear him bantering with Dick about whether it's a freeze-pop or an ice lolly and say "put the kettle on" in Alfred's accent. She wants to have piggyback races, her on Dad and Damian on Jason. But it won't happen because Dad has been asleep for a week and they're all starting to implode.

Damian's warmth keeps her grounded in the moment. She points at the clean roll of bandages and tube of burn cream on the worktop. If they treat everything now she can get in with Dad and spend the night upstairs. Duke needs hugs too. Maybe they're all home and everyone can stay in Dad's room.

Cass refuses to consider that as wishful thinking.

Damian holds the bandage roll whilst she unwinds the old ones. Cass' aim is perfect, obviously, and they land clip-thmp in the metal bin. The new ones are soft she knows, but she feels nothing beyond pain-sad-sorrow. Damian meets her eyes. Upstairs now? Of course, responds Cass. They're going to get Duke and find their other brothers and get in bed with Dad and call Steph to come to the Manor instead of staying at home. Maybe Dad will wake up. Damian's hand fits in hers the way a baby brother's should as they tread up the stairs, step by careful step.

It's been a long week.

Jason mindlessly washes today's used plates. Alfred has been awake for over 40 hours, again, and about half an hour ago (right after he got in) he'd recoursed to applying sedatives in a tactic most commonly used by the aged butler himself. The words that usually race like morning starlings through him have stilled, lethargic like bees in the very height of summer, and he's feeling like a blank slate on a cold rooftop. Washing up is helping him, a moving meditation whilst he lets his subconscious sift tonight's patrol and his feelings about being in an almost-full house with B laid up. On the surface, he's staring out of the window above the sink (every version of his memories of home have had a kitchen window above the sink) as he mindlessly wipes mugs and bowls and plates and knives. Comatose. He hates that word more than any other. Dead. Not quite dead. As bad as catatonic. Worse than gone.

Seeing Bruce carrying Cass out of the burning warehouse after the explosion was – horrific, worse than the expanse of his multilingual vocabulary has the spirits to express. The nightmares have been worse this week than they have in months and months – he'd discussed it with Tim and he'd suggested it was because of the role reversal. Instead of Jason being the one who didn't make it out, this time it was Bruce who could –

No. Never. He isn't going to even think that word. Bruce is going to be okay.

He has to be unkillable because that's what makes Batman Batman, that sheer stubbornness that hauls him up despite injuries that would kill any other being, the strength of his soul against absurdity. Jason – he can't survive without his dad by his side. Bruce is the gravity he revolves around, like the moon to its planet, like the planet to the sun, like the child he is deep down who craves the approval of his most beloved parent. A few months ago he'd done a writing exercise on his fears and he had written a piece about how he'd felt after Bruce died that time. It – felt like dying, somewhat. Attempting to express himself then had left him in a heap of tears on his dad's doorstep, the paper copy stained and crumpled in his lap. Like hell is he going through that again even in a flight of his overactive imagination.

People announce their arrival by tapping the door as they enter the kitchen, most sacred of all rooms in the Manor. The tone of the tap announces it to be Cass; he makes a mental note to keep an eye on her breathing for any damage caused by the smoke inhalation. Damian is here too, but he's hesitating to enter the kitchen proper like a colt to a new barn. The edge of his yellow blanket is reflected by the window glass, a ghostly blur that would perhaps frighten an ordinary civilian. Jason keeps washing until reaching out to the counter on his left no longer yeilds a handful of crockery for him to clean and set on the draining board to the right. The still silence stretches out, water trickling through dust, deep enough to drown in, a weighty reminder of all the gravity he was hiding from. Damian's form doesn't move in the glass, nor Cass' in his periphery, but his older brother senses are whispering for him to listen to what isnt being said.

"Jason. Come to bed now."

"Cass-"

"Now!" she bursts as her fist slams the table, catching him more than a little by surprise. Her chest heaves as tears well up in those beautiful dark eyes of hers. Damian's eyes are wide where he stands wrapped in his blanket-cape, knuckles white. Jason softens, melts like chocolate, and nods his wearied understanding. To bed, to vigil, to comfort.

Bruce will sleep safely, if he has anything to do with it.

Tim stares sleepless at his ceiling. Seeing Bruce lying injured in his bed never gets any easier. Sometimes, Tim wishes his thoughts weren't quite as strings-tied as they are – he knows he can't change that ideas and names and numbers flit like sparks until they find a match and ignite into realisations or bonfires which keep him up at night. He knows that if it could be changed Bruce would have done it ages ago, would have given up parts of himself for it. Heroic. Protective like a dad should be.

Someone taps at the door. All Tim sees is ceiling. "Tim? Tim, I'm coming in, 'kay?" It's Jason. Tim can't summon the energy to care. Grief is weighing his ankles and wrists as surely as lead, and not even the feel of Jason lifting him can break it, nor can the knowledge that he's being carried. Turning into Bruce's room makes him press his face into Jason's shoulder. If he screws his eyes shut he can almost imagine it's Bruce carrying him up to bed after a long day or after he's fallen asleep somewhere he shouldn't be sleeping, if he keeps his eyes shut he won't see that Bruce is the one wired into life support.

Jason sets him down gently on the bed, leaving plenty of room for Bruce, and Cass presses against him. They fit together so well like they were built as ballast for each other and designed to be in the same place but not even that is a comfort tonight. Not when Bruce is as good as dead, again. Cass slides her hand into Tim's, resting her chin on his shoulder as she looks unhappily at Bruce. Is it worse, something in Tim wonders, for those who haven't already lost a parent permanently? It was the worst time of their lives when Bruce died but he came back, so maybe Cass and Damian don't have that experience of parents lost forever, maybe they have that hope. Hope isn't logical, hope is a red S on a blue background or a yellow Bat on dark clouds.

Hope isn't meant to be lying wrapped in bandages on his bed.

Tim rolls around, nestling into Cass. It feels a lot like being home, lying on this bed which is the heart of the home and the universal safe space. "Is Steph coming?" he asks without taking his head out of the crook of Cass' neck.

"I called her, she's coming over now. She won't be long," answers Jason. That's good, thinks Tim through the fog, that's good. "Alfred is asleep – and he's to stay that way – and we're all here. Nobody wake Dick," Jason orders firmly but quietly as he settles into one of the big old armchairs near the bed. Evidently Dick is on the other side of Bruce somewhere as he likes to be. Fair, that the others fit around him. He hasn't slept enough recently, but maybe if they're all here he can relax enough to get a few hours. Nobody has been sleeping. They're Bats, though: they can sleep as a colony or not at all.

"Of course I'll come, Jason. How is everyone?" Steph presses the phone between her cheek and shoulder as she packs books and clothes into her bag. It's not like anyone needs to truly pack to go to Wayne Manor, since the house has had so many children in it that there's got to be every single size of clothes in there somewhere. Cass just wears whatever she wants, Jason pretends he doesn't dress like Bruce, Tim wears the first thing he grabs when he isn't dressed for work. Jason heaves a sigh over the phone.

"Well, Cass and Damian are getting Duke and I'm about to fetch Timmy into B's room. Dick's fallen asleep, so hopefully we don't wake him." Steph looks over her apartment to check nobody will see any evidence of Spoiler or attempt a break-in before she draws the door shut and locks it. On the other end of the line she can hear muttering, what sounds like doors opening and closing, and that was definitely Damian's "Tt." Maybe tonight will be the night B wakes up, and stuff can start stabilising again. Sometimes Bruce seems to underestimate his importance to the family and assumes they don't need him. He's not exactly wrong, they'd survive his death (hopefully, Steph won't accept the alternative), but times like this emphasise how much they all need each other around to even approach normal human functioning.

"Okay, I'm going for Tim. How long you going to be?"

Steph checks nobody can see her tying the suitcase to Red Robin's cycle – she'd borrowed it tonight whilst hers was in for tuning – and switches the phone to her other shoulder so she can start the bike. "Ten minutes or so," she guesses. Maybe less if she speeds, but getting caught would mean paying the fine and they'd all agreed to try and avoid that to lessen the strain on Alfred. The fines did get paid, but it was easier on the police too if they didn't rack up too many. "See ya Jay," Steph says quietly.

The streets provide enough distraction that the anxiety over Bruce and the family in general doesn't overwhelm her on the journey, but by time the cycle is parked in the cave and her suit is on its shelf Steph is ready for a few strong cups of tea. Padding through the house reveals no sign of life, and no Alfred pops out anywhere, so she assumes he's been put to bed like Jason was threatening. Her phone buzzes. 'In B's room', she reads. Righto then.

Duke sits up sniffling at the knock on the door. He knows it's Damian, that he just has to make some kind of noise and they'll leave him alone for a bit longer, but Duke also knows that he would regret sending the kid away without even trying to keep up the connection he's forged. Wiping tears off your face as someone climbed onto the bed next to you has no sign of weakness in this household. Breakdowns are unfortunately regular occurrences - sometimes Duke thinks they might actually scheduled, but he has yet to find a board or calendar for it. There is something so comforting about Damian's weight to his side, so similar to that of his little brother Matt (who is thankfully on a ten day trip, or rather, two five day ones) that the relief may as well be Pavlovian.

"Alfred requires his bedding changed," says Damian quietly, carefully eyeing Duke's response.

"'course," Duke sniffles, "Ugh. C'mon then." He takes Damian's offered hand and pulls himself upright, following the boy out of his room down the hall to the stairs where Alfred is perched regally on the bannister. The cat leaps and curls around Damian's neck, purring loud enough that Duke can hear it. Watching Damian and his pets never fails to make him smile; so much joy from so little. "Where's Titus? I've just noticed I haven't seen him," asks Duke. He's not going looking for the dog this late. Obviously he won't let Damian go alone to do it so he'll go anyway.

The two of them tread wearily down to the main library in search of Titus after depositing Alfred in his cattery. How many houses have a full room cattery, Duke wonders. It can't be many. Must be a rich people thing. The air in the library tastes of old books and leather and ink from Jason's calligraphy left on the table. It must have been out all week and dried solid by now, so Duke carefully bundles the paper together and puts the lid on the ink in the sort of last-ditch effort typically associated with sieges and battles. Titus leaves Damian and comes to sniff him carefully all over, finally huffing off out of the library with Damian at his side.

"Thomas?"

"I'm coming, kiddo."

"Duke! Damian!" calls Steph from the stairs. Duke smiles, stepping into the offered hug and sharing his strength with this girl who seems to understand him so well. She steps away to catch his eyes and it feels like she's paring away all the masks and layer of protection around the ball of wailing grief in his chest, that pulse of what if what if that keeps him awake all night, the throbbing need to keep this child safe, who belongs to them, this family, and Steph understands at such a primal level. Duke lets go of her and watches her hold Damian close, thinking on how tall he's getting now and how none of them are ready to let Bruce go. When Damian comes and stands close he gently touches his arm to Damian's, solid and unmoving like he knows he will need to be.

Alfred wakes slowly as he always does after sedatives, floating up out of the haze and into the cold wash of reality. Such dreamless sleep is unusual, and the clock at his side informs him that he has been out for eight hours. He'll have to congratulate Master Jason on sneaking the sedative into the green tea he'd brewed. The boy would go far indeed if he continued as he was.

The decision of whether or not to dress properly was taken out of his jurisdiction by the flash of the 'non-emergency call' LED near his door, part of the display Bruce had built and wired for him at least five years ago, maybe more, to moniter the main wings of the Manor. Swinging his dressing gown on as he strode up the stairs to Bruce's room dislodged a photograph of Thomas and himself from shortly after Bruce's birth, but no glass shattered so he left it to lie.

Upon quietly entering the master bedroom Alfred was struck by the manner in which his grandchildren poised around the bed. Had something happened? Was everyone alright? Had-

"Alfred!" gasped Dick, "Alfred, he moved, he's waking up."

"Bruce?" breathed Alfred," Bruce, my boy. Wake up for me?"

The kids shuffled around to allow Alfred to sit by Bruce's head, stroking back the salt-and pepper hair, tracing the scars old and new.

"You are loved, my boy."

_This fic is also on AO3, under the same name. _


End file.
